Born in Miami, Joy Castro is the author of the novel Hell or High Water, forthcoming in July 2012 from St. Martin’s,and the memoir The Truth Book.  She teaches literature, creative writing, and Latino studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Seneca Review, and The New York Times Magazine.  Her grown son plays in a band in Oregon, and she lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with her husband and foster daughter, and their cat.

Nola Céspedes, an ambitious young reporter at the Times-Picayune, catches a break:  an assignment to write her first full-length crime feature.  While researching her story, she becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in New Orleans.  As Nola’s work leads her back into dangerous corners of the city, she finds herself faced with an even more compelling question:  Who is Nola Céspedes?  Vividly rendered in razor-sharp prose, this psychological thriller is a riveting journey of trust betrayed—and the courageous struggle toward recovery.

“Hell or High Water is more than just a mystery; it’s a heartfelt examination of a second America—poor but undaunted—that was swept under the rug but refuses to stay there.”  –Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River

“In the tradition of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Lucha Corpi, Joy Castro shows how mystery can be much more than the unraveling of crimes concealed.  An irresistible and compelling novel.”  –Lorraine M. López, author of Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories

The Truth Book:  A Memoir (New York:  Arcade, 2005), was named a Book Sense Notable Book by the American Booksellers Association and was adapted and excerpted in The New York Times Magazine. Adopted at birth by a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Joy Castro ran away at fourteen. Now a professor of literature, she has written a literary memoir that explores the fragile intersections of gender, identity, sexuality, religion, violence, ethnicity, and the body.

Island of Bones: Is a collection of creative nonfiction and personal essays, picks up where The Truth Book left off, exploring violence, sexuality, mothering, latinidad, poverty, class, and teaching in the academy today.